Pendulum Pedometer Vs Piezoelectric Accelerometer Pedometer
There’s no doubt Yamax Digi-walkers are accurate and reliable pedometers, however...pendulum pedometers like Yamax do have limitations...
Firstly the placement of a pendulum pedometer is vital for accuracy and they must remain in a vertical position on the hip / waist band. This can be a serious issue for larger bodies whose tummy sometimes cause the waist band to roll over or if the tummy overhangs. Piezoelectric accelerometers technology over comes this issue, for example the G-sensor tolerates up to a 30 degree tilt and can be placed anywhere on the front of the body (on waistband), or even better the Omron pocket pedometer such as the Omron HJ113 can be worn on a neck lanyard or easily and comfortably slides into your pocket.
Secondly, and just as important the counting of incidental steps can be a frustration with pendulum style pedometers. Simply opening the pedometer to view your steps, crossing and uncrossing your legs, sneezing or bending down will often cause the pendulum arm to record this movement as steps. Once again we find accelerometer pedometers come to the rescue! The accelerometers will eliminate incidental steps by not registering the step straight away. Depending on the Brand, using G-Sensor as an example the G-Sensor does not start registering steps until the 6th continuous step then it starts counting from 6 onwards.
Plus another cool feature of any accelerometer pedometer there is 'No clicking noise'....they are silent as they busily record every step you take.
While we still love and praise the Yamax Pedometer, there’s whole lot more to love about the accelerometer pedometers.
Here are a few leading Accelerometers Pedometer brands that are available...
A piezoelectric... what? Please explain! Instead of moving parts inside the pedometer, Piezoelectric Accelerator Pedometer have a strain gauge which bends instead of clicks. Japan have been using accelerometer pedometers for years they just didn’t share them with the rest of us :)... Accelerometer Article link coming real soon